Coaching Throws

Possibly our best Throws coach in recent times (ie since 1918!) was Bobby Bell who had been a cross country and 880 yards runner in the 1950's and early 60's who was out of the sport for about 20 years before returning and wanting to coach. His question was, what do we need? At that time with myself and Billy Hislop doing the running events,Scott Govan and Davie Gibson doing the jumping events it was the Throws that needed the input. So he started coaching and then went on to do the courses.
There is a dearth of throws coaches in the country at present and the City of Glasgow is putting on a series of coaching courses for coaches. There are seven sessions in all lasting from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm and are to be held at Scotstoun. Three of the sessions are basic stuff and then there are separate sessions for coaching the shot, the discus, the javelin and the hammer. They will be run by our good friend Hugh Murray and he will be helped by some guest coaches. When we put on the free training days for school throwers in the 1980's Hugh was a Regular and he has coached several club throwers in the past.
The first para was to indicate that you don't need a history in the events in question to coach it: we will really need such a coach before next summer. If someone would like to give it a go, there's nothing to lose and you should contact gordon.phillips@glasgowlife.org.uk

Coaching Courses.

The system for coaches gaining qualifications has changed again - there was a successful system in place for about twnety five years - there has now been three or four different systems in about six years! The original and best was (a) do the Assistant Club Coach Course; (b) do the Club Coach Course and (c) Do the senior coach course. It was simple, straightforward and worked well. They then split tha Assistant CC into Club Coach Level 1 and Club Coach Level 2: so you then had to do two courses to get what had been the basic award! Even after two courses you were still at the old ASSISTANT Club Coach! The most recent version has been inspired by an assortment of UK Governing Bodies and starts from the premiss that all sports (rugby, tennis, swimming, football, cycling, etc) all have elements on commone and so they should have almost identical training courses for coaches. The result is one that suits nobody - and as is the way, costs a fortune. I think from memory that it is £150 for Level 1 and£350 for Level 2: by the time you get to Level 4 (Senior Coach in oldspeak) it is four figures 1e £1000 plus. There is some considerable debate about the system on both sides of the Border.
What would I recommend to any new coach? Well (1) all coaches must have insurance and all coaches must have their enhanced disclosure check. Both can be done through the club if the committee set up the proper structures. It would also be worth enquiring what the club insurance is through UK Athletics: all affiliated clubs are insured and we would need to know how much.
(2) All coaches need input: the number of coaches who say 'I don't need to go to courses, do any reading, mix with other coaches because I have my own ideas' is big and is deluded. Not every coach knows everything and, as they say, why should the athlete be restricted by the coach's limitations? All coaches need to upgrade and add to their information and knowledge base. They also need to do some networking if they want to get their runners into the appropriate competitions.
So the club needs to be prepared to sub coaches to go to courses and coaches need to put some priority on attending courses, conferences at least three times a year. Three days from 365 is not a lot to ask.
Mind you, in the first place we need to recruit the coaches ...................... Who has been encouraging Donna, Paul, Mary Ann, etc in recent months? And idyou go ona course, don't keep it a secret - get into action - a paper qualification without some actual practical with a few athletes on a quiet track is useless.

Coaching and Officiating

All clubs in Scotland - and England, Wales and Ireland too, come to that - need coaches and officials. If you go to the scottishathletics website (www.scottishathletics.org.uk ) there is information on how to become a coach helper or official. Just go to the website at the above address, click on Central and Tayside's New Coaches, then click on the link to the UK Coaching Pathway Courses and click on Dunbartonshire Leaders Award. It's on 7th November and it would be a good intriduction to becoming a coach helper and a step to becoming a coach if you felt so inclined. Parents often want to help their children, veteran athletes and committee members also want to take a step towards being a coach - this would be a valuable step to that goal.
If you would rather be an official - and remember they are still looking for officials for the 2014 Commonwealth Games and we as a club must provide graded officials at league matches - the go to the scottish athletics website (address above) and click on 'National Officials Training Day' and take it from there.

Coaching in the Club

When I joined the club in 1957, coaching was a problem but like many another club at the time the guys who had run for years and who were now thought to be past it, were to be seen at the track at night giving the benefit of their experience to the up-and-coming athletes. Wilma Paton went on about the lack of specific coaching for the women (justifiably). The club then called a meeting to discuss the coaching problem in the Hunter and Currie rooms in Whitecrook and as a result David Bowman, Frank Kielty, David McGhee (a high jumper) and myself all volunteered and went on the appropriate course at Jordanhill in 1960. I was asked to work with the girls and encouraged the parents to help: Maria Taylor's Mum Mitzi came along, Moira Peel's parents Bob and Ishbel came along as well and Helen Donald, Ian's wife also helped out. As in all clubs, the situation arose again in the 1970's and the coaches then were Derek McGinley for the U13's, John Tonner for the U15's and myself for the U17's. Then in the 1980's and 90's Derek and I were the main men but we gradually built a team. Mark and Donald Govan's DadScott came in to coach high jump, Lynn Hardware's Mum Emily came to coach Long Jump, former middle distance runner Bobby Bell came back to coach the Throwers and Bill Hislop worked with the sprinters.
Right now, we have a facility on our doorstep that we will have to use. BUT - if we are to use it profitably we need the structure in advance so that we 'hit the ground running'. Right now, we should be making contact with Donna Campbell (long jump) and asking her to stand by for action when the track is available' Paul Doherty should be being cultivated and encouraged to keep himself available; add in Donald for the sprints, Phil with the endurance runners and Peter Halpin and you have a superb team.
So the club should be building the team.
An afterthought - get the endurance runners down from the Antonine to train from the School. The number of seniors who come into coaching just by being there when they are needed or feel like it is high in every club. If your intention is to coach at some point, the sooner you start mixing with the young'uns the better. You can't just plummet in from the Antonine when you feel like it and expect the Juniors to take to you immediately
C'mon - build the team. That means parents, senior members and former members as well!

Three things

First, Peter Halpin, a UK Athletics Grade Three Coach and a first class athlete a few years ago, is starting coaching sessions at Scotstoun on Saturday mornings from the start of August - just in time to get endurance folk ready for the autumn season of cross country and road running. Donald Macleod will also be available for these sessions. I know from past experience that Donald and I used to get small numbers of committed athletes at these Saturday sessions and the runners learned a lot and the coaches appreciated the chance to work with small numbers.
Second, it was good to see Paul Carroll winning the Sinclair Trophy this week. It is one of the major trophies in the club and has been won by many first class athletes who were outstanding on the Ntional scene and not just within the club. Good to see because it gave Paul two wins in twow years and he now has the incentive to go for three next year. Gerry had a good run to be second after a hard battle. Congratulations also to Pamela for winning the Ladies race - someone should put up a trophy for that one too. On the down side, it might have had a bigger turnout had it not been held in the middle of July which is always a dead month. We used to just not book anything, changing accommodation among them - for the month of July because of the holidays. It was also the only month when committee meetings were not held because of the Fair Holidays: in December we just held the regular meeting in the first week rather than the third week so that business could be conducted. Anyway, congratulations to Paul and Pamela - I think that they should do the first dance at the Presentation together!
Third, How about coming through to Pitreavie this weekend to see Peter Bowman and Johnathan Farrell competing in the Scottish Championships? If it is a good idea to ask them to be stewards at the club Dunky Wright, it is equally good for the cross country guys to go and see them compete.
(In brackets, where are we with the submission for the clubmark?)

An Evening with Steve Jones

On Wednesday I was at Scotstoun to hear Steve Jones talk about endurance running in general and marathon running in particular. He was vey good but very quiet and could hardly be heard at the back of the room. Fortunately Peter McGregor grabbed me and had me sit at the front with him so I heard almost everything. I'll return to what he said before I go on holiday on Saturday but I'll pick up on two kind of controversial things he said in the hope of getting a response! First off: he was asked about the state of British marathon running and what could we do about it. The reply was as expected that the figures and times sepak for themselves. He reckoned that one reason for the poor state of affairs was the number of fun runners and charity runners. You can't criticise charity runners for running slowly and their numbers are growing while those of quality are decreasing. That trend will have to be reversed. He went further and said that last year in the States something like $55,000,000 was raised in charity races and none of it went back into the sport. He thought that that was wrong - the money raised by runners for charity was earned specifically for the charity but surely some of the profits earned by the organisers should go back to the sport? Any comments? Not to me, on the blog!
The second thing was when he was asked why the British Women do so well in the marathon and road racing generally when the men are not producing the goods at all. His comment was that the Africans had appeared on the men's scene but not on the women's racing circuit in anything like the same numbers. The men's ranking lists are totally dominated by Africans and it has had a demoralising effect on the men. It used to be that if a guy was ten seconds ahead of you in a race you would have a go at changing that the next week but now the men don't do that. The scene might be changing in the States because there are several projects working that might see the Americans doing it. The women do better because they still have the carrot of Olympic medals and big race prizes.
These were a tiny part of a whole evening's presentation (I have eight pages of notes and these two took up half a page between them) but have a think about them! I'll be back with some of his comments on training and racing.

Steve Jones

Steve Jones the former marathon star and still the fastest marathon runner produced by the British Isles, is at Scotstoun on Wednesday to speak to coaches about his event. If you are coaching a marathon runner then you should contact Mary Anderson at Scottish Athletics about it. It's from 6:30 to 8:30 and I believe that it is free. There will be ample time for questions.

Coaching in the Club, Part Two

If you haven't already done so, have a look at the last post first. It has always been the same in my time in the club - where do we get the coaches? At the end of the 50's concern was expressed at Committee Meetings about lack of coaching for all events, especially field events, so the Committee called a special general meeting to discuss the topic. There was a good turn out in the meeting in Hunter and Currie's Halls in Whitecrook Street and the Secretary had collected as much as he could from the SAAA/SWAAA on the various courses, etc. The result was seven club members (all practising athletes at the time) volunteered to go on the first coaching course which was at Jordanhill, another group agreed to go to some regional development days and bring back what they could and a group went on a training weekend at the club's expense. That worked well enough and the coaches were all existing club senior members, men and women. In the 1960's when we lost so many women and girls of a very high standard to the short lived club of champions Western Ladies AC, the coaches were initially me and Ian Cameron (both racing members at the time) and we recruited two former athletes and four parents to do the coaching.
So what's the point then? The point is that we have two good coaches at present in Phil and Donald. First, they cannot cover all events; second, they cannot cope with all age grouos in the one group or with their own one pair of hands.
The two sources of supply are current athletes, former athletes and parents. Teachers used to be a good source but that dried up after the teachers strikes in the early 90's.
If it is agreed that the two coaches need help, where and how is the issue to be addressed? It is down to the club - either the Committee should as part of a wider club development plan take note of the situation and decide on what action to take and how to tackle the problem or the athletes/parents/existing coaches should make sure that the appropriate coaches are in place for the summer season. The coaches could well come from among the parents themselves - when West Dunbarton AAC started up, many of the coaches were parents who had no background at all in the sport.
Of course if you are going to ask senior athletes or coaches to commit one night a week or even two sessions a week, then there has to be a support structure in place for them. You cannot do what they did to Ian Leggett in Livingston - he did the Level One course on tha Sunday and was given 30+ athletes to himself on a Tuesday! He chucked the coaching on the spot. And quite right. If there is any interest in this, then I will suggest what kind of support new coaches could get next week!

Coaching

There was an excellent article in the Herald last week by Doug Gillon about coaching. He quite rightly says that the UK and Scottish Athletics gverning bodies have been guilty of neglecting the education of coaches for at least twenty years. As one who lived through it I an vouch that the coach education system in the recent past has been undirected, difficult to find out about and guilty of a serious dumbing down of the coaching qualification. In the late 80's and early 90's w had no fewer than sixteen coaches in the club: three Senior Coaches (now level 4),five Club Coaches (now level 3) and nine Assistant Club Coaches now level 2) plus many parents helping out when appropriate. As a result the club was flying - number sven in Scotland while VPAAC was fifteenth. But regardlss of the qualifications the status of coaches was higher - that's what made people want to take it up. Where did they come from? here were two main sources - athletes who wanted to teach other young people how to do their event, athletes whose competing days were over and parents. The two who led the superb women's and girl's league team were Emily Hardware (Lynn's Mum) and Agnes Gibson (Heather's Mum) and they were helped by Liz McAusland (my daughter), Julie Govan (High Jump coach Scott Govan's daughter), Lynn Cowan (Colin's sister) and Jenny Keir (their friend!) and every one of the five had their quafication - Emily and Agnes were what would now be level thre and the others level two. As far as the men were concerned the main coaches were Scott Govan (Mark and Donald's Dad) who coached High Jump and hurdles, myself, Bil Hislop (Sprints coach), Bobby Bell (throws), David Gibson (Pole vault), Hugh McArthur (everything but mainly middle distance) and several others, including Peter Halpin and Derek McGinley, making it one of the best coaching squads in the country. The question is could we do it again? The next post will address this one.

GW meets EAC

This evening Scottish Athletics Chief Executive Geoff Wightman meets the Committee of Edinburgh AC in Edinburgh. The meeting is in response to a letter sent to SA bu the club Committee with no fewer than nine points for clarification or explanation. For instance they start with the point that motions for debate at the AGM must be in 60 days before the meeting BUT the SA only have to give clubs 42 days notice! How does the one square with the other?Lack of consultation is also the basis for two separate items - specifically there was no consultation about the 6 year plan and also there was no consultation about curtailing the competition opportunities for Under 13's at National level. There is also a lot of greeting about bad English clubs luring Scots athletes to compete for them down South when Scottish clubs can't afford to compete - but they themselves are often accused of just that within Scotland. What's sauce for the goose, etc. Their last point is about the lack of courses for coaches in Scotland and the appropriateness or otherwise of what there is.

The meeting of individual clubs seems to be GW's chosen method of getting his way - divide and rule and that kind of thing. Remember the meeting with Pitreavie AC a few months ago??? Why does it matter for us? It matters because it affects all Scottish athletics when the executive gets away with what is unelected dictatorship and the results of their activities affect our athletes. If you go to the Edinburgh AC website (edinburghac.org.uk) and then click on Club Executive Meeting.

The ICAF Conference

I have been going to coaching conferences, conventions, etc since about 1976. I did my first coaching course in 1961 and my last coaching examination in 1977. The first coaching course was held at Jordanhill under the instruction of the famous Messrs Livingston and Dickenson (who became the Scottsh rugby coach) and in company with seven other senior club members. The club needed coaches and we all felt that if we were going to coach, then we should know something about the events and the course covered basic instruction in every track and field event. At least we were more confident when we made our mistakes! It was at the level of the old Assistant Club Coach and the current Club Coach Level One. I was then coaching as well as running until 1966 and only started coaching again in the mid 70's when approached by Robert McWatt. I did the Senior Coach exam in 1977 because the other qualified coach in the club was John Tonner and some of his runners were saying that THEIR coach was a Senior Coach whereas I was only a club coach. It also gave me access to information that was circulated automatically to all Senior Coaches and made me a better coach. I joined the British Milers Club for the same reason - the information and contacts made me a better coach. Every coach who only has his own experiences to use as a basis for his coaching is limiting what his runners can do. All coaches should read as much as possible, talk to as many coaches as possible, know as much about the current scene in the country in their events as possible.
I started going to Coaching Conventions to meet other coaches and earwig on conversations and get notes and opinions about the sport. I succeeded on all of these. The one at the weekend was outstanding in my experience and much much better than the previous European Convention in 2008. First there were many more people to talk to, second the calibre of the leaders and speakers was a whole lot higher and the feel good factor for coaches was immeasurable. And how many coaches were there from the East End of Dunbartonshire and the West End of Glasgow? One from CH (me), two from Victoria Park/CoG (Sheila Atkinson and Bill Parker) and one from West Dunbarton AAC (Bob Burness).
Frank Dick has started using among his expressions - and he has many - the one that the only advantage that the coach has is the ability to learn faster than the opposition. Another quote from someone else whom I have forgotten is that the athlete should not be restricted by his coach's limitations. I used to ask other coaches to take sessions where I was relatively weak - eg in 1985 I asked Ian Robertson, Sandra Whittaker's coach, to do some speed work with Sam Wallace and Ian also did some work with Peter Halpin when he was running 400's; I also asked help from Jimmy Campbell, Tommy Bryce and others. Tommy Boyle used the assistance from a whole team if people including Stuart Hogg. All coaches have their limitations and need to fill the gaps by learning - there are many ways to learn and for all of my coaching career I have sought information that would give my athletes a competitive advantage over the opposition. If you need help with some aspect of training your athletes, ask someone!
We need more coaches in the club - many of the best coaches are parents, many are ex athletes - and we need to make sure that they are prepared and helped in every way to learn their trade. Who knows where it might lead?

An Interesting Weekend

It has been an interesting weekend which included the International Coaching Conference at the Marriott Hotel and a trip out to the Allan Scally Relays at Shettleston. Relays first. There were unfortunately only three runners from the club in a race where we used to have four or five teams. It's not just us - the field was dreadfully small and looked like the smallest in the race history. Part of the reason is the absence of the Edinburgh to Glasgow: some clubs selected their teams on the running in the Scally, in other clubs those already selected wanted a hardish run over a distance approximating to their stage of the E-G. When the E-G went, these reasons went and a lot of the runners went as well! In addition there was a new trail this year so the possibility of comparing times with those of yesteryear was gone. Nevertheless it is a good well organised race over longer stages than any relay currently on the calendar and it was disappointing not to have a full team out. The guys all seemed to enjoy it - Gerry was running the Scally for the first time and he liked the loop course with its long downhill at the start and the long uphill to the finish. Peter ran second and Bobby ran third. It was a good day and the official times should be up soon.

At the Marriott there were 450 paying customers to participate in the ICAF Conference and about one third of them were Scottish. The opening remarks were by Frank Dick who is always good value for money and Sergey Bubka who was much better than I had anticipated - very good English and a tight script that he delivered well and which fitted his time slot perfectly. This was the man who had vaulted over 6 metres 42 times in 40 competitions - last year the number of clearances in total was under 10! It was well received by everybody whatever their event. Then it was off to event groups - there was a group for every event on the calendar each led by an acknowledged expert. I went to the Elite Middle Distance Group up on the thirteenth floor led by Wilson Kipketer - I'll tell a wee story about him in my next post! He spoke and took questions for an hour and a half which went by very quickly. He was the man who ran 1:41 four times in 1997 as well as several 1:42's and took Coe's record from him. On the Saturday morning, Frank Dick again did his bit - and a very good bit it was too - and then Wilson Kipketer addressed the assembled multitude followed by Seb Coe (present and past world 800 metres record holders) then they were part of a double act interviewed by Frank. That one went down a storm but I'm going on a bit and I'll come back to it later in the week. It was well worth attending and I can recommend it next year when it returns to Scotland.

Time was Wrong

Sorry folks, the coaching meeting mentioned below is from 12 noon until 4:00.

Further Education

I see from the Scottish Athletics website (www.scottishathletics.org.uk) that there is a seminar being held in Glasgow on Saturday 5th September dealing with endurance running. It is free of charge but attendance is limited and applications have to be in as soon as possible. Speaking at it will be Tim Noakes, author of possibly the best book on distance running ever, Tolosa Terfe, former National Coach in Ethiopia, Dr Bezabih Wolde Hataou, who has been involved in advising elite athletes on injury rehabilitation, nutrition and providing physiotherapy and Sport Massage Services. It lasts from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm and they have refreshments available from 11:30 am. If I lived in or near Glasgow, or if my athletics career were at a different stage, I would be along there like a shot! The club could certainly do with information from these people but any endurance athlete or coach would benefit from meeting and hearing from these people. In my early days in the club we went to hear speakers from cycling and swimming in the Library Hall and early on I started going to the Coaches Conventions in Edinburgh. The East Africans are the people doing the business these days and it would be really good to go along - it's only two hours out of the whole year!

Field Events

On Monday the first session of the new field events coaching system started in Postie's Park, Dumbarton. It is a pity that we have to go so far but since there is no usable track and field facility in Clydebank and the newest field events set up in the West of Scotland is at Postie's, that is where we went. Donna Campbell and Paul Doherty both had a gentle start to their coaching but it went well and more athletes are expected next week. Bobby Bell is also available for the throws events but unfortunately he had no takers on Monday - this must surely be rectified. He is too good a coach for the situation to continue!

John Lunn in Leeds used to do a UK wide ranking of clubs. His method was to take the best three performances by a club member in each of the events, allocate points according to the decathlon scoring tables, add them up and then rank them. His last year of doing it was 1993 and Clydesdale Harriers was seventh in Scotland. Of the local clubs, Shettleston was fifth with 36,393 points, Clydesdale was seventh with 34,560 and Vicky Park was fifteenth with 30.649. We were actually better in 1994 and 1995 was our best points total ever. It is to be hoped that the developing field events scene will help the club back to their former position. Whether it does or not, it will certainly bring more enjoyment to many young and not so young athletes.
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Some Gossip

The new Scottish Athletics Fixture List is now out along with the PB magazine and booklet of Championship Entry Forms. If you intend to compete in any of the District or National Championships, you had better make a note of the date NOW and put them on the big calendar that every family has in the kitchen as well as in your training diary. Don't be caught unawares - you should be starting to shape your training for them now. The other thing though is that you should be registered with the membership scheme. If you have been racing in past years and don't have the package of stuff referred to above, you probably need to renew your membership; if you are starting back after a layoff, get yourself registered and you will get all the info sent to you. You can register by phone using a credit card at 0131 476 7321 or online at www.scottishathletics.org.uk. Don't go rushing to Donald, Phil or Yvonne two weeks before a championship asking them to check or even to do it for you!

James Austin was on the phone last night - apparently he has been ill since the Dunbartonshire Championship in Kirkintilloch and is still on medication although he hopes to be racing during the summer.

Continuing the comments on Committee Organisation, the two people who really keep any club going are the Secretary and Treasurer (Yvonne Green and Jim Wright). The Treasurer's job is self evident but there are lots of wee additional bits that go to making it more difficult than Jim makes it look. There is the monthly statements and cash book entries that we have before us at every committee meeting, there is chasing up money that should be in the bank but is not - like the Puttnam Dividend that Jock Semple left us and which produced a monthly sum for the club but which disappeared off the radar for a bit. The Secretary is supposed to be the person who organises the agenda, does all the club correspondence and often has to guide a president through the meetings. The secretary is actually there to smooth the path of the club's journey through athletics. It is important that both Treasurer and Secretary are in post for some time so that they get to know the routines, set in place their own ways of dealing with problems and make the necessary contacts throughout the world of athletics. We are exceptionally lucky to have Jim and Yvonne filling these posts for us and it is to be fervently hoped that they will continue for some time to come.

Incidentally, Yvonne is the first woman secretary the club has had in all its time from 1885 and has been in post now for three years. Aileen Scott was the first woman president and was a really good and innovative president as well as chairman of the meetings. The only other woman holder of any of the main posts was Jan Shields who was assistant secretary in the 1980's/90's. She it was who started typing the club minutes instead of writing them out properly in longhand. It seemed like a good idea to us all at the time.

Some new club coaches - Donna Campbell, Paul Doherty and David Brown - are going down to Postie's Park in mid April to have a look at their new field events facility with a view to doing our field events training there. David of course has never been away but is is really good to see Paul and Donna back in action. Mary Ann Savage will basically be in charge of the group.